Congress Party: Splitting crisis

Exploiting Home Minister Charan Singh's rather indiscreet statement in
Bombay - almost speaking on behalf of Justice Shah - Mrs Gandhi's three
dare-devil supporters, Devraj Urs, A.P. Sharma and B.P. Maurya demanded
that the Congress Working Committee must put a total ban on any
Congressmen appearing before the Shah Commission.

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May 6, 2014

ISSUE DATE: December 31, 1977

UPDATED: April 6, 2015 12:21 IST

Mrs Gandhi - resorting to brinkmrmship

Brinkmanship is practised by political gamblers with an eye to overawe their opponents. Mrs Indira Gandhi has in the present phase of the internal crisis of the Congress been persistently resorting to brinkmanship.

After delivering a propaganda sheet in the form of a letter before the Shah Commission trying to justify her absence from its proceedings, she went to the Congress Working Committee on December 5 to block the presence of other Congress leaders before the Shah Commission.

Exploiting Home Minister Charan Singh's rather indiscreet statement in Bombay - almost speaking on behalf of Justice Shah - Mrs Gandhi's three dare-devil supporters, Devraj Urs, A.P. Sharma and B.P. Maurya demanded that the Congress Working Committee must put a total ban on any Congressmen appearing before the Shah Commission.

The absurdity of this move was exposed by Kerala Chief Minister, A.K. Anthony, who pointed out that a number of Congress leaders from the party president downwards had already submitted written affidavits before the Commission and signified their readiness to appear before it while a number of others like C. Subramaniam, Gokhale, Pai, D.P. Chattopadhyay, V.C. Shukla and Om Metha had already testified before it.

Anthony's reasoned stand was supported by others, but as a sop to Mrs Gandhi, it was decided that Congressmen would be "advised" - as demarcated from being "directed" - to stay away from the Commission at this stage. In other words, the Congress leaders permitted the initiative to pass on to Mrs Gandhi.

Mrs Gandhi no doubt scored a point over her opponents; since the subsequent days' proceedings of the Shah Commission dealt with the very serious conduct of Mrs Gandhi in getting the Emergency imposed by false representation to the President of India, and in this episode, the affidavits of Brahmananda Reddi, P.C. Sethi, Vengal Rao and Urs are damaging indeed; by preventing this physical presence before the Commission, Mrs Gandhi brought some, however temporary, relief for herself.

The next day's meeting of the Congress Working Committee was devoted to a patch work solution on Karnataka. This was preceded by rather angry exchanges when Mrs Gandhi's complaint of persecution of her followers was, for the first time, rebutted by even the otherwise-inert Chavan with the charge that she herself had been managing the U.P. affairs as a "royal preserve".

Obviously, the patchwork was doomed, because the very same night, the Indira coterie met at 12 Willingdon Crescent where Mrs Gandhi and her hard-boiled chelas could rope in the rather urban Mir Qasim who only a few weeks ago had accused both sides of taking rigid positions.

The result of this nocturnal conclave at Mrs Gandhi's residence was an epistolatory offensive by Urs at Chavan, virtually charging him and Congress President Reddi with bad faith and making it clear that there could be no solution of Karnataka in isolation from the rest of India.

Meanwhile, Mrs Gandhi's followers have precipitated a crisis in Andhra by resigning en bloc from the Vengal Rao ministry, while in Punjab, Zail Singh has come over to Mrs Gandhi and the PCC President Gill has ganged up with Reddi.

The showdown seems inevitable, but both sides are proceeding towards the split in an unbecoming fashion. Petty squabbles dominate, and like the Holy Roman Empire, the Congress high command has ceased to be a command, not to speak of being high, and wondering if it would for long be a Congress worth the name.

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